NEPS-Stage 1 deals with the first educational phase in life: early childhood education. At the beginning, the family is particularly important as a place of learning. Soon, extra-familial care and educational settings are added.

Key research questions

• How do children's early educational skills and abilities develop from birth until they enter institutional care settings?
• How are developmental and educational processes promoted in family and non-family care and educational settings?
• How do family and non-family settings interact?
• From what age are non-family care and education settings used and to what extent does their use depend on the child's stage of development and/or family background, including the family learning environment, parental needs and orientations?

Survey methods

In order to answer these and other research questions, an adequate longitudinal assessment of the abilities and skills of infants and toddlers in the first years of life is particularly important.

The Habituation-Dishabituation paradigm was therefore used to record basic cognitive abilities and early learning resources, with which both cross-domain (e.g. category formation) and domain-specific precursor abilities (e.g. precursor abilities for language development and mathematical skills) are recorded. The survey program of NEPS stage 1 also includes the mapping of the respective care and educational settings and is supplemented by a videotaped semi-standardized parent-child interaction, which enables the quality of the early home learning environment to be recorded.

Further information 

• Detailed description of the conception and design of the survey program of the early phase of NEPS-Stage 1
• Current concept (NEPS-Stage 1)